Moe Lane

Interesting.  Below are the latest (just before the election) Debt and CoH (Cash on Hand) totals for the various committees:

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Excellent news, if true: former governor Lingle was popular for most of her two terms in office (term limits prevented her from running for a third term in 2010).  Some heavily partisan Democrats trumpeted some heavily partisan Democratic polling earlier in the year in an apparent attempt to keep her out of next year’s race; it’s apparently backfired.

This does not necessarily translate to ‘Lingle is a shoo-in.’  The state is reliably Blue these days; it’s one of the few places where the Republican party did unambiguously worse in the 2010 elections (loss of the governorship, a House seat*, and losses in both houses of the state legislature).  How bad is it, in fact?  Well, let me put it this way: meet Sam Slom, otherwise known as the Hawaiian Republican Senate caucus.  The retirement of Sen. Akaka is likewise going to attract a lot of Democratic hopefuls; Hawaii has an institutional tendency to keep re-electing incumbents once they’re in office, which means that anybody getting that Senate seat can reasonably expect it to hold it for a while – even by US Senate standards.

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The Wall Street Journal aptly sums up in one sentence the reason why this relatively obscure bit of news is spreading rapidly along the right side of the blogosphere: “Former HP CEO Carly Fiorina will help Senate Republicans raise money ahead of next year’s election to do what she couldn’t in the last one: win seats held by Democrats.”

Ouch.

As to the merits of hiring her; if Fiorina’s being brought in just to help with bringing in big-donor fundraisers, that’s actually not a bad call – although the fifteen million that the WSJ reports that she brought in against Boxer last term is sorta-kinda contradicted by this Hill article, which gives as a not-self-funded number something more like eleven, twelve million.  Either way, the NRSC’s showing a current 1.7 million cash on hand (and no debt) to the DSCC’s 7.8 million (and 3.8 million debt); like everybody else out there right now, the committee kind of needs good fund-raisers.

The real question, though, is whether or not this hiring is strictly financial.  There’s some deeply skeptical people out there who are right now wondering whether this move has anything to do with Senate Minority Leader McConnell’s boneheaded one regarding the debt ceiling…

Moe Lane

Charlie Cook is bearish on the thought of the GOP retaking the Senate this year – which, I should note, is a large step up from, say January 2009: back then they were talking about how the Democrats might increase their existing majority in 2010.  Charlie sets up the current situation as follows:

Three open seats currently in the hands of Democrats seem pretty likely to end up in the Republican column this year. Sen. Byron Dorgan’s seat in North Dakota is a goner. Democrats have strong candidates in Delaware (Chris Coons) and Indiana (Rep. Brad Ellsworth), but the strength of the opposition in the former and the toughness of the state in the latter means these Democrats, who might have won under other circumstances, are likely to come up short this time. Watch for both to resurface.

To score a net gain of 10 seats, Republicans would also have to sweep the seven Democratic seats that the Cook Political Report rates as Toss-Ups, taking open seats in Illinois and Pennsylvania and defeating incumbent Sens. Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas, Barbara Boxer in California, Michael Bennet in Colorado, Harry Reid in Nevada and Patty Murray in Washington. If the GOP came up short in one of those, they would have to make it up by carrying one of the two additional vulnerable Democratic races, claiming the open seat in Connecticut or beating Wisconsin incumbent Russell Feingold. Both of those races are competitive as well.

Here’s the basic problem.  Pick any one of those races listed above, and you can see how the Republican can win.  The trick is winning all of them, or at least ten of them* – statistically speaking, that’s a bit of a stretch.  Said stretch is modified by the fact that the results are not really dictated by random chance, but even so we’ll still have to count on everything breaking our way. (more…)

I’m sure that the Democrats are kicking themselves right now:

The South Dakota Republican — who also leads the Senate GOP Policy Committee and is widely viewed as a 2012 presidential contender —is up for re-election this year. But no Democrat or Independent filed to run against him, leaving him with plenty of time and money to help Republicans win seats this November as the party seeks to regain a true sense of relevancy on Capitol Hill.

National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (Texas) said Thursday he planned to meet with Thune soon to explore ways the up-and-coming first-term Senator could help the NRSC and GOP candidates from now until Election Day. Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) added that he fully expects Thune to be a strong political asset over the next 135 days.

Senator Thune is, after all, possessed of a dangerous combination: he’s able, popular, and not particularly busy this electoral cycle.  Two out of three would be a net gain for the GOP’s 2010 electoral campaigns; three out of three is very welcome news.  And since the DSCC’s recruiting program so spectacularly fell down on the job here*, you can even say that this bit of good fortune is ultimately due to the Democrats…

Moe Lane (more…)

This is good news…

Gov. Charlie Crist told MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough on April 30 that he would “probably” give refunds to donors who don’t approve of him leaving the GOP. Some donors to his U.S. Senate campaign were told before the switch that they would get their money back or pro-rated refunds.

No more. A couple of hours before Crist officially becomes an NPA voter, campaign spokeswoman Michelle Todd said there will be no refunds. Asked whether that amounts to a flip-flop, she said, “We have never made an official statement before. It is now the official statement. They donated to the Charlie Crist for U.S. Senate Campaign, and it’s still the Charlie Crist for U.S. Senate Campaign.”

…for three reasons: (more…)

We already knew that the DSCC had dropped $1 million on keeping the netroot’s candidate down in Ohio: now comes word that they’re doing something similar in Pennsylvania.

The DSCC is spending a significant amount of money to ensure a former GOP Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) wins his May 18 primary, sources with knowledge of the move tell Hotline OnCall.

One source said the DSCC is using coordinated funds to help Specter keep a robust TV presence. Ads that tout Specter’s candidacy now say they are paid for by the DSCC; last week, the disclaimers on the same ads indicated Specter’s campaign had paid for them.

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[UPDATE] Welcome, Instapundit readers. To save time: we need implementation of the good ideas we’ve had already more than we need new good ideas; if I have a choice between bondage-themed clubs and more of this I’d like the bondage-themed clubs, thanks; and the grassroots activists that we have now are not public utilities, and many do not like being volunteered to work.

Glenn Reynolds:

My advice to GOP donors: Ignore ‘em, and send your money directly to candidates you like.

Moe Lane:

…Just resign yourself to the fact that doing so will limit November’s victories to candidates that can somehow manage to get your attention.

You don’t like the RNC, the NRSC, and/or the NRCC? Fine. You got something that will replace them? You have something that will allocate resources to every race, work with every candidate, keep track of the Other Side’s mistakes and pounce on them? Let me save you some time: no, you don’t.  You don’t have anything that’s even close.  And if there is anything that’s even close that’ll be in place in time to be a meaningful factor in November, I have not heard its name.

If you have a problem with the Republican party’s candidate selection system, join the Republican party and start doing all the boring scutwork involved with candidate selection.  You’ll be amazed at how quickly you’ll be in a position to do something about your problems.

Moe Lane

PS: Please note that this reflects my personal, private opinion and nobody else’s.

Well, well, well. Short version? All three Republican national committees raised more than their Democratic counterparts for the first time in… well, a while.

A while.

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The combination of CPAC and a reduced feeling of urgency delayed this for a couple of days, but here are the numbers for January.  Short version: RNC over DNC, effective ties (as in, less than 10K/20K differences ) for the Congressional and Senatorial committees, and the Democrats retain their cash-on-hand advantage.

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It’s that time again.  Short version: RNC above DNC, DNC took a big cash on hand hit, NRSC over DSCC in the biggest shocker, NRCC/DCCC more or less the same, DCCC has a big CoH advantage, and blessed if I know how much any of this means, post-Citizens’ United and post-Brown.

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I approve.

Working quietly and under the radar, the National Republican Senatorial Committee shifted $500,000 to the Massachusetts GOP in the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s dramatic election, according to Republican sources.

The NRSC transfer, made in several dispersals beginning Jan. 7, was used for phone and mail get-out-the-vote operations targeted at independent voters, said Rob Jesmer, the NRSC’s executive director.

NRSC officials kept quiet about the money transfers, despite public taunts from their Senate Democratic counterparts that the GOP leadership was declining to put money behind Brown’s candidacy.

…and do you know why I approve? I approve because the Coakley race has become a giant hole in the ground in which the Democrats have been pouring money for the last few weeks; and if the DSCC had realized that they were spending five times as much as the NRSC had they probably wouldn’t have spent it. Fear of the unknown is the most potent kind of fear, folks; and this was a large unknown space on the map for Democrats. I’ll happily endorse the NRSC spending half a million to help win one of the seats that the DSCC spent 2.5 million defending: how about you?

Now, if we can only convince them to stop getting involved in primary races…

Moe Lane

PS: Positive feedback works to correct behavior, too. Just saying.

Crossposted to RedState.